Sebastian Smee

Formal feeling comes good

issue 20 January 2007

Contemporary Australian fiction, like Australian film, is known more for its exuberance and antic energy than its reticence and restraint. Deborah Robertson’s Careless, a first novel that has already won her acclaim in her own country, is a marvellous correction to the stereotype.

Robertson’s ingredients are simple, but disparate: right to the end, one is not quite sure how they are going to combine. This uncertainty gives the novel an intricate atmosphere of floating suspense.

In a moment of murderous rage and insanity, a man drives his truck into a children’s playgroup. Among those killed is the young son of Lily, a neglectful single mother. His older sister, Pearl, survives, and much of the novel is concerned with how Pearl comes to terms with what has happened.

Another character, a louche contemporary artist called Adam, gets involved when a civic body, spurred by the inevitable public outpouring of emotion, decides to erect a memorial to the children, and to victimised children in general.

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